In a night that had an abundance of goals, penalties and even a penalty shot in the final seconds of regulation, the Vancouver Giants came out with a 5-4 victory in overtime.
“It was a great first period and I’m really happy we found a way to win at the end of the day.” Michael Dyck said following his team’s character win.
The Giants saw goals from Milos Roman (11) and Cole Shepard (5) in the opening frame and outshot the Oil Kings 16-8.
The period also saw Vancouver’s first powerplay in three games, a part of the game that has been a struggle for the Giants who sit 21st in the league, only ahead of the Swift Current Broncos.
“The powerplay was good in the first, it’s only as good as the five guys on it.” Dyck continued with
Tristen Nielsen scored the first of his two goals on the night just 14 seconds into the second period to give the Giants a 3-0 lead.
After that is when the penalty trouble came back to start to haunt them like it has throughout the season.
Vancouver surrendered four powerplays during the period, which gave the Oil Kings some life after their slow start.
Edmonton played in Victoria the night prior, likely responsible for their slow start but they found their legs during the middle 20 minutes.
16-year-old phenom Dylan Guenther opened the scoring at the 2:18 mark for the visiting team on the powerplay, one of two on the night for Edmonton.
Riley Sawchuk also added his twelfth goal of the season to bring the game within one goal heading into the third period, which was nothing short of exciting.
New York Rangers prospect Matthew Robertson tied the game on a short handed breakaway to complete the three-goal comeback for Edmonton and basically gave the night a whole new hockey game.
The crowd of 4077 LEC faithful on hand for this game got a shot of life back into the building when a scrum ensued at the 8:45 mark that saw Jackson Shepard and Logan Dowhaniuk square up at centre ice in a spirited scrap that made the atmosphere electric.
“It almost had a playoff feel to it especially when the crowd was into it. That energizes our group and we feed off it.” Tristen Nielsen said post game.
Adding to that, he said “With Jack’s fight we definitely feed off those, he stepped up at the right time and did his job.”
Though fighting is being less and less abundant in the game these days but it worked in this instance.
Just four seconds after the fight, Nielsen himself found a puck sitting in front of the crease that Todd Scott thought he had corralled to retake the lead.
Less than four minutes later, with Kaleb Bulych in the box for slashing, hometown kid Josh Williams buried the tying goal to suck the life out of the LEC crowd .
Now for the drama….
In the dying seconds of regulation, Carter Souch was sent in on a breakaway before being hauled down and awarded a penalty shot with 2.1 seconds left in regulation.
With the game on his stick, Souch rung one off the post as Trent Miner stood tall to send the game to overtime.
“We were just patient in overtime.” Dyck said about his team’s extra time.
Edmonton had the puck for a lot of the extra frame but ultimately the Giants finished the job when Justin Sourdif came in on a 2-on-1 and slid one five hole.
“When they had possession of the puck we did a pretty good job staying in position and we capitalized on our opportunity.” Dyck said.
The goal was Sourdif’s first on home ice this year and you could see the relief on his face afterwards.
“It’s his draft year so I think him getting that goal and assist tonight I thought it was a huge game for him and he really stepped up.” Nielsen said about his teammate.
Coach Dyck was proud of his team’s resiliency against one of the better teams in the WHL and gives his group some confidence after struggling as of late.
“They’re a good team. They’re deep and a top team in a very good Central Division so we’re very happy to get the two points tonight.” he said.
Tristen Nielsen earned himself the first star with a three point night and his squad will look to bring this momentum down south next weekend when they visit Spokane and Tri-City.
“It’s definitely huge. We have momentum going into this hard week of practices and then we go on the road and face two good competitors, so I think with the win it definitely sets us up good.”
